CREATING THE MASS MIND

Dunstan Times, 20 March 1933, Page 3

CREATING THE MASS MIND

IDEALS OF COMMUNISM RUSSIANS GAN NEVER BE ALONE The Bolshevists are the first to admit lha I many of the ideals of Communism remain unrealised in Soviet Russia (writes Martin Moore, in the London ‘Daily Telegraph ’). But there is one article of the creed which has been brought to swift and complete fruition —the elimination of the individual and the apotheosis of the mass. There is only one individual in Russia. His name is Lenin, and he lies under a glass ease perpetually lit by electric light. Everyone else is a personality only by virtue of his or her relation to the mass or to some section of the mass.

This insistence on the importance of the mass colours every aspect of daily life in Russia. The people live and eat and work and play in the mass. They study or pursue hobbies or travel, always in groups and gangs and “ brigades.” Such regimentation would be unbearable to Western people, but it suits the Russian temperament. You have only to watch Russians at work to realise that they prefer the gang method. If they are digging, for instance, they will stand so close together that spade strikes spade. NEVER ALONE. In a Moscow street one day 1 watched the operation of tipping a truck load of potatoes down a chute into a cellar. It was a job that required at most two men—one to shovel the potatoes off the truck and the other to guide their progress down* the chute. But there were six shovellers at work, getting hopelessly in one another’s way and treading on the potatoes. It was a trifling instance, but typical of the way everything is done in Russia. Incidentally, it showed why most enterprises are so overstaffed in relation to Western standards and why production per man is so low. Apart from this sociable temperament, fortified by the mass philosophy of Communism, the everyday existence of the average Russian is conditioned by the fact that it is almost impossible for him ever to be alone —at home, work, or play. Food, shelter, and everything he needs can be obtained only in the close society of his fellows. The most important factor is the terrible overcrowding in the towns.

Every room in every dwelling is a bed-sitting room accommodating tAVO to six persons, each with his little section marked off with a line or low partition. Privileged, indeed, is the man who can get a whole room, however small, to himself. One woman whom I met told me that for two years after her divorce she and her ex-husband had been obliged to occupy the same room, dimply because neither could find anywhere else to go, ALL AT WORK. The new blocks of Hats which are being built in the outer circle of the cities arc less crowded, but life in them is organised on a strictly communal basis. Residents cook and usually eat communally, they leave their children all together in the creche, and have a common club room. , Take an ordinary day in 111 elife of Take an ordinary clay in the life of an average family in a Russian city. The adult members of the family work in a factory under conditions of absolute sex equality; indeed, the wife may be earning more than her husband. The grandmother, or some elderly relative. will doubtless spend most of her day standing in a queue for the family rations, or foraging on the free market for what she can afford to buy. the ground of fatigue, excused himself from appearing at the family table Shortly after his arrival, however, he rang for the maid and asked her to supply him with a pound of fresh butter. ' In the course of a twenty-four hours' visit the request for butter was repeated on four occasions, the general not showing up at mealtimes, and presenting himself to his host and hostess only when he came to thank them for their hospitality and bid them adieu. Meanwhile, the children go to a school or kindergarten, according to their age. where they get a mid-day meal, as the parents do in the factory. In Moscow and Leningrad, at any rate, education is complicated by the fact that there are not nearly enough schools to accommodate the pupils. The shift system has consequently been adopted.' Small children go to school ver.\ early in tin- morning, finishing about noon, when they give up the classroom to older pupils. The latter occupy tin? desks until late afternoon, when their place is taken by adolescents. Finally, an adult class may occupy the same classroom at night. CHEAP AMUSEMENTS. When work or school is over, the family is free to seek amusement or

recreation. Tins, too, is organised communally. and u, generally associated ,vitlt propaganda. In the summer the worker and Iris family will go to the Park of Culture and Rest, there to dance, play round games, listen to loud-speakers, shoot or shy at effigies of European statesmen, or examine working models of machines.

In the city itself the leisured Russian has a choice of numberless museums, most of them devoted to propaganda. But the most popular entertainment is the opera, theatre, or cinema. All of these are cheap, and the worker can get scats still cheaper through his trade union. Indeed, the theatre or cinema is almost the only worth-while outlet tor the surplus money which the Russian earns but cannot spend. Consequently, every house of entertainment is crowded at every performance. Here, again, propaganda thrusts its way to the foreground. All news plays and all the films are inspired by Communist ideology. I saw one film in which the “hero ” was a mechanised fruit-bottling factory, and what looked like a promising romance between two shock-workers merely ended in a race to “ clock on ” when the siren sounded. But while some workers are thus amusing themselves after their labours, others arc taking up new tasks with redoubled vigour. These are the “shock workers,” enrolled in brigades which pledge themselves to do some additional job in their leisure hours. Sometimes this job means voluntary overtime in the factory itself. More frequently it is in a different sphere. A shock brigade may go to a neighbouring factory, where the workers are lagging behind the Plan, and “show them how.” It may go out into the country and dig potatoes, cut wood, or help with a collective farm harvest. For such extra labours the brigades are suitably rewarded, it may be by an order entitling the workers to buy a pair of boots each at a shop normally reserved for engineers or foreigners, or to buy butter and cheese. Such rewards are well worth working for. as anyone may judge by glancing at the shops- In any large town there is only one shop that presents an aspect of normal prosperity—the foreigners’ shop, where Russian currency is not valid. Other shops are either empty or are reserved for privileged classes of workers, AT THE SHOPS. What can the Russian with his roubles buy in a shop? He can buy fibre suitcases of all shapes and sizes, for he is a great traveller. He can buy busts and pictures of Lenin and Stalin. He can get his own picture taken at a photographer’s. He can buy skates and skis, boxing gloves, and tennis raskets. Indeed, you sometimes see a man going about in football boots or running shoes, simply because these are the only kind of footgear he can get. But none of the solid necessities of life can be bought for roubles without a card Small wonder, then, that it pays to be a shock brigadier. The Government jgots a great deal of extra labour by turning into special rewards the articles which every worker ought to be able to buy with his normal pay.